When he got his internship at Eastern State Hospital, Frey’s last concern was what the place would smell like. More prominent thoughts would have been his payment or his hours, and although he could not say his work smelled bad, the scent was one of the surprises that came from his position. Hospitals had to be clean, and that was reflected in its aroma. Sanitizers and bleaches filled the building air, and subsequently Frey’s head with a pungent overly clean stench that cut through his nostrils. One of the few escapes that the building had from it was the cafeteria, where Frey always found himself on break.
He took a seat at one of the empty tables. His nose delighted in the pleasant aroma of toasty bread with sliced apples, bacon, and melted cheese married together as a panini on his plate. A change in pace that he always welcomed around lunchtime. As he lifted the sandwich to his mouth, his lips embraced the warm wheat with a big bite into the delectable family of ingredients. His eyes rolled back into his head, as he let out an uncontrollable, “Oh yeah.”
While the young man chewed away at his meal, he felt the disturbance of a vibration in his pocket. Frey set down the panini and pulled out his handheld device, alerting him that he was receiving a call.
He held the phone to his ear, and greeted, “Hey, what’s red?”
On the other end, the person buzzed back.
“Yeah I’m good right now, I’m just on break,” Frey said.
With his right hand, he grabbed the sandwich and took another bite while the caller talked. Frey nodded along as he chewed, and squinted as he said, “Wait you’re talking about Teresa, right?” and as the caller confirmed, he continued with his mouth full, “Okay, wait. If it’s Teresa you’re gonna wanna be extra careful then. I had her in bio-chem and she was still with her boyfriend then so I would―”
The caller interrupted.
“Yeah, Erik.”
The caller shot back again.
“No yeah, I don’t think, it shouldn’t be a big deal you know? It was at least a month ago. You just wanna be sure you don’t come off as an asshole. You’re good at that.”
Frey’s hand pulsed from the phone’s vibration, notifying him that he was getting another call.
“Wait hang on one sec,” he said as he set down his sandwich and lowered the handheld from his head to look at the screen.
He stopped chewing.
In large letters, his screen displayed the name Azura Themia.
He put the handheld back to his ear. “Yeah, I, uh― I… hold on.”
Frey darted his eyes across the room, making sure no one was watching him, and then got up from his table.
“It’s uh, definitely in the way that you ask her, man,” he advised as he walked away, “you gotta uh…” Frey paced back to the table and grabbed his panini, then continued to the nearest medical closet, stepping down the white corridor and past a nurse dressed in blue, eyeing him with his panini in hand.
“Hey listen can I call you back?” he asked as he approached a lonely door in the hallway going to the cafeteria, “Yeah, great, talk to you later.”
He opened the door and stepped inside the closet, being greeted by a collection of spare gloves, disinfectants, and medications lining the metal shelves, their shadows barely being fought off by the golden hue of a yellow light shining from the ceiling.
Azura Themia was still waiting on the other line.
Frey swallowed, then picked up.
“Azura, I said I didn’t want to talk anymore.”
“Frey! They know where I work! They just showed up at Patcheez’ threatening me!” Azura’s panicked buzz shot through the phone. Her voice’s normal fuzz was amplified now, as it travelled from one speaker and through another.
Frey blinked. “Hold-H, wait hold on, the bald guys?”
“Yes the bald guys!”
“Well have you called the cops yet to tell them you’re being stalked?”
“Frey, the moment I get the police involved in this I have to explain to them what I was doing going to a convenience store with broken cameras at midnight on the other side of town! No, I am not risking getting police involved in this.”
Frey swiveled back and forth. “Okay then what are you gonna do? What am I supposed to do to help you here?”
“I need you to tell me exactly what your relationship is to these men.” Azura said.
He stared at the bottles of disinfectant, and felt the rough crust of his sandwich rub against his fingers. He lifted the panini up slightly, before lowering his hand to his side again.
“That’s… that really isn’t something I wanna be talking about with you.”
“Bullshit. Frey, you need to tell me why they were chasing you that day!” She argued.
“Why?! How will knowing my business with them help you?”
“How am I supposed to defend myself if I know nothing about them? This is about my safety! Frey, please! Just tell me what business they had with you.”
Frey’s face tightened as he squashed his lips together. Part of him pressured himself to keep them shut tight, but the other part reminded him of the baby blue uniform he was wearing and the building he stood inside. This wasn’t a battle he could win, nor was it one he should have wanted to.
He let out a breathy grunt.
“Their names are Beck Loinchester and Kaz Fielder and… I brew them ollie,” Frey said.
His eyes lowered, and he continued, “Something happened recently, and I… I’m dry. I couldn’t get them anymore, and they uh, they didn’t like that, so. Yeah. Until I can find a way to get my hands on more… who knows.”
Frey only heard the buzz of the lightbulb above him, and the faint chatter behind the closet’s door.
Her voice crawled through the phone. “You deal ollie.”
As quiet as they were, the words still punched him.
“Yeah.”
He waited for his handheld to produce more sound but was only hit by the persistently subtle mutter of static in his ear, before lowering the device and seeing that she had hung up.
Frey stood still and silently. He put the handheld in his pocket, then switched the panini into his left hand and took a bite.
It was a little cold.
The eldest Themia sister’s long day of answering calls and patching Hoffwell’s electrical problems had wound down, and she waited patiently at home for her sister’s arrival. It was already 9:00, two hours past when she should have been home. What was she doing, Soteria wondered.
While she tapped her fingers away on the bar counter, she made out the beeps of the front door’s lock, and its subsequent click open. Azura stepped inside. The moment she was free from the outside air she removed her work cap and hair tie, letting her flaming locks droop down to her shoulders, then quickly did away with her apron as well, folding it up in her arm. Soteria couldn’t tell if she was more tired or hurting underneath her charcoal eye makeup—either pained Soteria.
“Hey,” Azura said.
Soteria stood up from the bar and walked over to her. “Let me see that glove.”
Azura squinted. “…Okay.” She lifted her left hand to show Soteria.
Soteria stared at her. “I meant take it off.”
“Oh,” Azura said, as she slid it off and handed it to her sister.
Soteria delicately held it with both hands, scanning it up and down.
“How’s the dBm on this thing?” she asked.
“It’s good,” Azura said, “it seems to hover around three bars.”
Soteria looked up from the holopalm and scoffed. Azura’s neck reflexively popped back.
“I swear these things...” Soteria walked toward the hallway with the glove.
“What? Is there something wrong with it?” Azura asked, causing Soteria to turn around for a moment.
“This thing shouldn’t be muddied at three bars. Got a patch that should kick this to four or five, easy. Wait out here it’ll only be a sec.”
Azura watched her fade into the hallway's darkness and disappear into her bedroom.
“Okay.” Azura stood alone for a moment in the living room, then moseyed over to the couch, slinging her apron on the arm, underneath her cap. She shut her eyes tight and tried to focus on her breathing. She didn't want to waste the moment of quiet she had been afforded.
A muffled holler came from Soteria’s room.
Keeping her eyes closed, Azura turned her head back and shouted, “What?”
“How was work today?” Soteria shouted back.
Azura shut her eyes tighter. “Great.”
Seconds later, the gentle steps of Soteria’s feet on the carpet made their way from her room back to Azura and the couch, with the holopalm ready to be returned to her.
“Alright, try it now.”
Azura fed her fingers into the glove and activated the photomesh, its blue screen displaying her home page with a 3-bar signal in the top right corner.
“I’m still getting 3 bars.”
Soteria leaned over Azura’s shoulder and clicked her tongue. “Huh… well give it some time. Sure it’ll kick in.”
“Yeah.” Azura curled her fingers into a ball, shutting off the screen. “Thanks.”
“Eh don’t thank me, it’s nothing.” Soteria began again towards her room. “Got some work I gotta do. You eat?”
“Yeah, I got something.”
“Alright.” Soteria shut herself inside her room, leaving Azura alone on the couch once again. After her day, she thought silence would comfort her best, but it took only moments before she reopened her palm and was endlessly fiddling through the screens to pass the time.
While her sister sat in the other room, Soteria swiped right on the white screen underneath the door’s handle, and with a click the screen turned red. Inside the inky blackness surrounding her, the illuminated monitor on her desk called for her. Pushing her chair aside, Soteria stood over her desk with her palms pressed into the wood as she stared into the screen’s light, displaying the Locater application on her computer. In front of her was a bright map of Hoffwell, centered on her home. While the rest of the city was modeled in an impressive 3D, her home had interior access, generating a detailed view of every room in the apartment from her bedroom to the kitchen.
On the left of the screen, there was a tab labeled “Devices” which when opened listed a series of symbols associated with different labels such as, “My Tablet”, “My Watch”, and a newly added device, named, “Holopalm S-20”. Most of the devices’ symbols appeared on the map inside of Soteria’s room, but the yellow holopalm symbol was alone inside the living room. As Soteria watched it closely, it moved from the couch to the bathroom down the hall. From outside her room, Soteria heard the bathroom door click shut.
She moved her cursor to the device tab on the side of the screen and clicked on Holopalm S-20, changing its name to just, “Azura”.
As Soteria closed the application, she wondered if she could someday develop a software patch to improve the glove’s signal.
An hour later into the night, Azura lightly rubbed a bruise cream under her left eye as she stood in front of her bedroom’s mirror, no longer covered in her makeup, no longer hidden by it. A tradeoff, for the constant cover of her bedroom’s walls. With an exhausted groan, she turned herself around and rotated her neck so she could see her back in the reflection, as she dabbed the cream onto the purple smudges underneath her shoulder blades.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
She screwed the lid on the ointment and gave herself one final look in the mirror, before turning off her bedroom’s lights. She removed her vocaled and crawled into bed.
Underneath her sheets she shifted around endlessly, curling her body to try and find the posture that pained her with the least discomfort. She wasn’t sure if finding that position was possible.
As she lay sprawled out on the mattress, she flexed her hand to turn on her holopalm. A cold blue glow beaming from her palm illuminated her face in the surrounding darkness.
Azura opened her text app, then was struck by the reminder of Ren’s last message to her.
Sorry just saw this! Sure! Feel free to come by whenever :)
She shut her eyes and let out a silent, damn it, and a sigh.
Azura got out of bed and stepped over to her clothes drawer, sliding it open and pushing away her shirts to reveal the pile of money hidden inside.
She grabbed her vocaled, got dressed, and threw on her jacket. Stuffing the money into the pockets, she zipped the jacket up and shut the drawer.
As she walked toward her door, she glanced over to her mirror, showing her the image of a tired, pathetic young woman, wrapped in a large blue coat and with a bruise under her eye. The image reminded her of the stinging in her back. It reminded her of her of Bear. It reminded her of a man, who, although treated her poorly, was served a fate worse than what he had dished to her.
She couldn’t help but cast her eyes down, away from the reflection, and when she did, she noticed a stray bill on the carpet. She swiped it up in a second, but before placing it in her pocket, she let it sit in her palm, frowning as she focused her eyes on it. Something brewed in her mind, as she lifted her eyes toward her window.
“No…” she whispered.
Azura shut her eyes while she squeezed the bill. “No, no, do not.”
As much as she pleaded with herself, a force within her overpowered her better judgment, and that force led her to her window, which beneath the starlit sky led her to the subway station, which led her across town to the rundown shithole of a west side convenience store that was Drewcker’s.
For as determined as her soul was to put herself across from that hideous neon orange store sign street once again, Azura was still perplexed by the anomaly of her reasoning. She understood the risks of returning to that building, yet she was there anyway, unable to reason how she could be so stupid. Whatever the explanation, she was sure of one thing: she would not go only halfway. Not for that.
The letters on the sign taunted her as she squeezed the money, and she almost wondered if the place was haunted. It gave her a moment of hesitation, but even that wasn’t enough to dissuade her following the day she had. After everything, she just needed an ending. So, she stopped delaying and made her way across the street and inside the dying market that had caused her so much agony, for, hopefully, the final time.
The door closed behind her. A young woman with dark chocolate hair sat behind the cash register, coated in the light’s pale cyan hue. She tossed a translucent yellowish orb up and down, before spotting Azura out of the corner of her eye, saying, “Hi.” and then returning to her tossing. There was something about her greeting that stood apart from Drewcker’s. It was warmer even in just a word, devoid of any resentment hiding inside. It calmed Azura for a second.
“Hey,” Azura said.
With her hands still in her pockets, she walked over to the chip aisle, pretending to be intent on finding a snack to leave the store with as she softly hummed the song on the speakers. She wondered what the most normal chip brand was… and as the thought crossed her mind, she began to realize the absurdity of the act she was putting on. She thought it over in the chip aisle for another moment and then decided to walk straight over to the woman at the counter.
Azura watched her throw her ball; if Azura was right, she hadn’t dropped it yet. As she noticed Azura approaching, the ball disappeared from her palm and into dust. With a smile, she asked, “Can I help you?”
Azura stood two feet in front of her and stared. While rubbing her thumb along the money, she meekly said, “Hi...”
After waiting for Azura to say something more, the woman raised her eyebrows and showed a big grin.
“Hi!” she said.
Azura was right there. She had the money in her pocket. If she had any opportunity for peace of mind, her chance was sitting right in front of her with a toothy smile. She began to pull out the handful of money from her jacket… but she stopped herself before her fist left her pocket.
Improvising, she asked, “What’s that ball you were tossing?”
The woman eyed Azura’s vocaled. “It’s just a construct… do you know what a construct is?”
Azura played dumb. “No, no what is that?”
“Oh well, I’m a conjurer so, if I want to I can manifest certain objects.”
Azura tilted her head. “Certain objects? So it can’t be just anything?”
“Well,” she chuckled, “it can’t be super complicated. I mean, I have to be able to imagine it… in detail.”
Azura nodded along. “Oh… so, like a ball, huh?”
“Yep.” The woman opened her palm, and the yellow ball appeared once again. “Ball works great! I’m trying to find some new ways to keep myself awake while I'm covering the night shift…”
“Oh, you’re not usually on night shift?”
“Nope…” the woman said, as her eyes ever so slightly drifted off, “usually it’s my dad… but since last night…”
Amber went quiet.
Azura’s heart picked up its pace. She watched Amber stare at the counter.
She asked her, “What happened last night?”
Amber's eyes lifted from the counter as she squeezed the ball in her hand.
“We got robbed.”
“Oh no!”
“Yeah. My dad was working, and these two pencils walked into the store and started beating on a customer, then they cleaned out the register.”
Azura’s mouth dropped. “Oh my god… you were able to find the guys who did it though right?”
She scoffed. “Yeah… you’d think. Checked the cameras and somehow out they didn’t catch the robbery, and I asked around for some footage from outside the store, and turns out those cameras were knocked out all night. Cleared the transaction history on the register too. So cops won’t do shit unless I pay them to investigate further. But yeah sure. Totally makes sense that these assholes leave my dad bleeding on the floor and decide not to rob the place while the cameras are out.”
The speakers went quiet for a moment as the song reached its conclusion, and it started up a new tune.
At long last, Azura asked her the question, “Is your dad okay?”
Amber’s eyes narrowed, readying herself to respond, and Azura’s body stiffened in anticipation.
“Yeah he’s alright,” she said, “Yeah. I mean, he’s got a bit of a concussion but god, it could have been so much worse. He slipped and cracked his skull. His skull. God…”
“My…”
“Yeah. Someone just happened to be strolling by at the time, and if they hadn’t then… I don’t even know…”
Azura’s muscles relaxed, but despite the news, she could still feel the weight of a boulder on her shoulders, perhaps temporarily relieved, but remaining ready to crush her at any moment.
Azura spoke, “I’m glad he’s okay.”
Amber nodded with tired eyes. “Yeah I am too… but… it’s just not enough.”
Azura loosened her grip on the money in her coat. “What do you mean?”
The ball faded from Amber’s hand. “Those men who did this are still walking around like nothing happened, like they didn’t put my dad in the hospital… It’s this city, girl. These people. They’re more concerned with getting money for their high than the people around them that they step on to get it. And then I get to keep working here, giving them everything they need to do it again the next day. And when everyone’s doing wrong, who is gonna care anymore when it happens again for the fiftieth time, right? Just another nothing robbery, happening to a nothing man, by people who know nobody cares enough to punish them for it. So instead we just get punished.”
Azura squeezed the money tightly.
“I swear to god,” Amber said, “robbery is one thing but… my dad? If I just had proof… jail wouldn’t even be enough. A couple worthless lowlifes like that? I would kill them. I would kill those fuckers dead.”
The two were silent. The words echoed in Azura’s mind.
Something clicked behind Amber’s eyes, and she tried to collect herself while her face turned red. “I―I am so sorry oh my god―”
“No no,” Azura interrupted. She stared into the pained expression of Drewcker’s daughter, and quickly diverted her gaze to the counter. “It’s alright.”
“Just been uh… long night―long day… I just wanna strangle something.”
“I get it… I’m sure the people who did this deserve it.”
Azura’s walk home was quiet that night.
Like before, she silently slid open her bedroom window and climbed inside, then silently closed it shut. Her eyes grew heavy. The call of sleep became impossible to ignore, so she hung up her jacket without removing the money from its pockets and then returned to her bed at last. As her eyes shut, the night replayed in her mind, and then again after that.
Azura’s sister, however, was not so quick to shut her eyes. Soteria shot up at an alert from her desktop, one she had been anticipating for an hour as she lay awake in her bed. Soteria removed her headphones. She was careful to not make noise as she walked over to her computer, leaning over the keyboard as she confirmed that the screen was buzzing about what she thought, which of course, it was. Open to her Security application, the screen displayed two new notifications, reading, Azura’s Window opened, Azura’s Window closed.
From there, she opened Locater, then sighed as she watched the screen show Azura’s location over the past hour, traveling from the apartment to a store across town.
Beep… Beep… Beep…
Ren opened his eyes, awaking to the beat of the EKG, and the touch of warm sunlight on his neck coming inside the window behind him. Like a spotlight, it shined on Bear, too. Despite the circumstances, it was almost possible for Ren to imagine the moment as pleasant; like the brothers were together at home again, making breakfast on a warm summer morning. It was a nice thought.
“Morning,” he said to Bear.
Bear gave no response.
Ren shut his eyes again, as decided he wanted to let his mind rest for just a while longer, but before he could comfortably return to sleep, he heard the room’s door click open.
He let his eyelids lift to see who had entered, and as he processed Azura’s figure in the door frame he had to double check he wasn’t dreaming still.
She looked different than when he saw her on Sunday, wearing a heavier face of makeup than he was used to, a combination of blue and black eyeliner that stretched to her brows, matching her navy jacket and dark pants.
“Azura!”
“Hey, Ren,” she said.
Happy to see the woman, but recovering from a mild moment of confusion, while getting out of his seat he said, “I didn’t tell you I was here?”
Azura shut the door and walked over to Ren. “You weren’t answering your apartment door, there aren’t that many other places I guessed you would be.”
“Oh…”
The EKG beeped behind her, and after an empty moment she asked, “Did you sleep here?”
Ren struggled for a second to gather an answer. “…No. I just got here a little early, you know, and I just didn’t get much sleep last night… you find yourself snoring here practically before you can even take a seat, ha!”
“Yeah.”
Ren diverted his eyes towards his silent brother on the bed, lying in between the two. “…You think he’s looking better?”
Azura had to consider her response carefully. “I think everyday he makes a little progress.”
“Heh, yeah… everyday.”
After watching the man artificially breathing in front of them, Ren switched his attention back to Azura, who too seemed ready for a change of conversation. “Hey, I do remember you said you wanted to give me something yesterday?”
As he said it, something shifted in Azura’s demeanor, like a child as their parent caught them in a lie. She nodded. “Right… that’s why I’m here.” She reached inside her pocket, and from it took out a scrunched bunch of bills. “Ren… I know you said you didn’t want to take any money from us, but I’ve been saving this, and I wanted to give it to you. So, if you need a free grocery trip, you have it. I know it isn’t much, but I know anything can help, and it’s nothing if it means helping Bear.”
Ren’s mouth dropped, and his eyes bounced between the money and Azura. “Oh Azura… how much is that?”
“It’s just under 420 dollars.”
“Oh wow…” he gawked.
Azura figured she had sufficiently planned what she was going to say, but now that she was in the moment she found any structure impossible to follow.
She awkwardly nudged her handful of money towards him. “So… here you go…”
Ren pushed back her hands.
Azura blinked in disbelief, looking up from the cash into his eyes of sorrow.
“Azura… Azura thank you, so much for this! Really I just can’t tell you what it means to me that you are trying to help but… I did mean it… I don’t want you to be giving me your money.”
She said nothing. She couldn’t find the words to speak, so she just stared at the man, with a loosened jaw and wide eyes.
“You need this money…”
“Azura I’m… I am sorry. You need this money too,” he said to her.
“…Ren… I do think you should reconsider.”
He shook his head and gave a weak shrug. “I’ve had a lot of time on my hands to think… nothing’s changed.”
Her eyes raced. “You can try again.”
“Azura.”
“Ren, please. I understand you, but it’s just a little help.”
He stayed firm. “I’m sorry I don’t think so.”
“It’s just money, it doesn’t have to mean anything!”
“Then you can keep it.”
Azura’s disbelief began to fade into desperation as she asked him, “Ren, are you hearing yourself?”
“I am,” he answered, without doubt.
She persisted. “How can you..?”
“Azura I know it’s hard―”
“Please…”
“―but you have to see―”
“Please I just don’t want it to have been for nothing!”
For a moment, the only sound that filled the room was the beating of the EKG beside them.
Ren squinted his eyes at her, and Azura cringed at her slip-up.
“What do you mean?”
“…I mean…” Azura raced to come up with a quick response. “my―savings. I mean I spent time working for this and I want it to go to use.”
“…Why don’t you just use it then?”
“Because! It’s for Bear! From the moment I put the money aside, to right now, it has been for Bear. No one else… and if you don’t take it then it will continue to sit, unused, forever. Then that makes everything I did… it makes it worthless.”
Ren sat with what she said, and Azura could observe something clicking for him as he started to lightly nod his head.
“… I think I understand.”
Ren sighed, then reached up to rest his hand on her shoulder as he smiled and said, “Azura, you don’t need to put yourself down over this. I know this whole thing… it makes you feel all sorts of things, but you should try to remain positive! You have nothing to prove.”
Azura took a quiet breath.
The words were a bomb wrapped in a gift bow, and they pierced through Azura’s skin like blades.
Like her disbelief before, her desperation now faded.
She gave him a gnarly stare with tightened lips and brows that touched her eyes.
The words played again in her mind.
You have nothing to prove.
“…Yeah… only you do, right?” she growled.
Ren’s warm smile completely disappeared, and he looked at Azura with a face masked with an intense confusion, which almost covered his pain. “What?”
Azura looked him dead in his eyes. “Is that not what this is all about? No one else gets to do anything to help Bear, it can only be his big brother. Those thousands of dollars of medical bills are reserved exclusively to be paid off by him, the comic book shop worker.”
Ren scrambled, stammering over his words as a cloud seemed to move in front of the sun’s light that once filled the room. “Azura I… what are you talking about? Not one part of this is about me.”
“What is it? Are you saying you're refusing to take a measly 400 bucks all in Bear’s name?”
“I’m doing it for you!”
“No, you’re doing it for you!” she snapped, with a voice ready to break.
Ren retorted, “What… what am I supposed to just keep letting people lose money over this?”
“You already are. You’re losing the money over this! But that’s fine right, because then you get to be the hero here, and we get to be saved.”
His pain fought its way to the surface, showing itself clearly on his face. “Oh, so I’m being selfish? I should let you two suffer with me instead?”
“We are! We’re all suffering through this! The only difference between us is that you’re getting through it by trying to show us that you can! I’m not doing this to prove anything. I’m not trying to redeem myself! I just care about my friend!”
Ren whimpered, “And I don’t? I haven’t spent every night waiting beside him praying to god that he would wake up? I haven’t been taunted by that container of ollie in his room every single day? Do you know what that first car ride here was like? I can’t even…”
Ren’s gaze was stuck to the floor.
In the corner of her eye, she again watched Bear, listening to them silently, and Azura’s scowl soon left her face. They took a collective breath, and they remained quiet as Ren waited for Azura to speak again.
“…I know you care. But… you must be lying to yourself if you don’t see that the best way to help Bear is together.”
He turned his eyes away, and for the first time, Azura felt like Ren was taking a moment to consider what she was saying.
Ren soon looked back at her. “…I don’t think I’m the one who’s not being honest.” He gave one last look at the money. “I’m sorry, Azura.”
Azura listened to the EKG for a moment. She had fought to her last breath, and she understood that the results were final. She pocketed the money as she turned away from the man and made her way over to the door, swinging it open before looking him in the eyes a final time and saying, “I’m sorry too.”
In the hospital, the one message that always played consistently in Azura’s mind was a loud and persistent, get out! However, that day as she strolled through the hallway and past the numerous sickbeds, she couldn’t shake something else that was calling to her. She couldn’t shake a certain itch.
As she walked through the lobby and out the exit, Azura opened her holopalm. The conversation she had left her weak, but she pushed forward, putting on a stern face as she called Frey.
The phone rang, and she curled her fingers, letting the speaker in her thumb touch her ear and her pinky’s microphone point to her mouth while she made her way to the subway station.
She waited for an answer, but the call went to voicemail.
Frustrated, she spoke into the phone, “Frey, it’s Azura. Call me back. I think I have a way I can help you.”